Pop-ups: Avoid making the helpful buggers too annoying

‘Do you want to learn blah blah blah? Subscribe to our newsletter now’. That’s what stares right in our faces when we are surfing through a website. Do we like it? Honestly, NO! Pop-ups fall under those desperate attempts made to get visitors hitched to a website. Many might say that they are not as much effective. But, numbers tell a different story in the case of overlays.

According to ConversionXL, WP Beginners which is a WordPress resource site, were able to achieve a 600% increase in signups by using intent pop-ups on single posts. This shows that when rightly used pop-ups can prove to be very worthy, no matter whether they are liked or not.

However, a few mistakes made while pitching pop-ups to the audience might damage the user experience. Here a few blunders that one should avoid committing to make pop-ups a hit.

Ill-timing your pop-ups

Timing your pop-ups is very crucial. It should neither be displayed too soon nor too late. Popping up the overlay as soon as a user enters your website is bound to leave them annoyed or even slightly irritated. If it pops up too late then you will lose priceless subscribers. Frankly, determining the best timing is difficult. But you can take a cue from www.digitalmarketer.com who triggered their pop-up after the visitors spent 15 seconds on their website.

Triggering pop-ups too often

One might think that more the number of times a pop-up appears, more will be the number of subscribers signing up. But, this doesn’t stand true for overlays. Remember, a user is on your site to browse through useful content. If pop-ups keep appearing frequently during their browsing session, then they are bound to get irritated and abandon your site. It would be sensible to trigger a pop-up just once during one’s entire browsing session. You could have a side pop-up, which doesn’t hide much of the page, though.

Not providing ‘exit’ option

Not providing a clear way to close the pop-up will leave your visitors confused. Your visitors may feel as if they are being compelled to sign up to your website and this isn’t a good feeling. This increases the chances of site abandonment. As a result, you will leave potential customers. Making the CTA (call-to-action) clear in the pop-up is very necessary.

Demanding too much information

You might feel inclined to know more about your visitors so that you can send customized offers to them. But requesting too much information from a pop-up might irk them. This will lower your chances of conversions. An ideal pop-up should only ask for the visitor’s email id. You may also segregate your visitors into ‘interested’ and ‘not-interested’ categories. Once a visitor shows willingness, you may then ask them for further details.

Pop-ups will help you hold onto the visitors that might potentially desert your website. They will also assist in increasing your sales. Although seen as a bit annoying, if done rightly, overlays will contribute more towards the growth of your business.